


Ain't No Rest for the Wicked

by puremarvelfeels



Category: James "Bucky" Barnes - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ain't No Rest for the Wicked, Gen, Hamilton References, Redemption, Songfic, The Winter Soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 02:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12072009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puremarvelfeels/pseuds/puremarvelfeels
Summary: It doesn't matter what Steve says.  It doesn't matter that it technically wasn't his fault.  It doesn't matter that HYDRA was controlling him.He still deserves to pay.





	1. Ain't No Rest for the Wicked

Bucky taps Natasha on the shoulder as the sweaty team exits the training simulator. “Hey Nat?”

“Yes?”

He scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “Can—can I get an appointment? With you?”

She laughs. “What, a counseling appointment? That’s Sam’s department.”

“I know. Sorry; I used the wrong word. I meant that I want to talk to you. But not when you’re busy.” Bucky smacks himself on the forehead—carefully, with his right hand—and takes a minute to come up with the right words. “I would like to speak with you,   
at your convenience.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, no—sorry; I didn’t mean to scare you. No, everything’s fine.”

“Okay.” She smiles, reassuring him that everything’s fine with her too. “Just drop by anytime JARVIS says I’m in my rooms.”

Bucky scratches his neck again.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Buck—”  
He sighs. Nothing gets past her. “Is—is Clint gonna be there too?”

“No! No, of course not. I’ll tell him to get lost. He won’t mind.”

“Okay.”

~~~

Bucky’s favorite flavored coffee is warming in the microwave when he walks into Nat’s quarters. “Hey Nat.”

Nat doesn’t take time for small talk. She points him into a chair, then brings out their drinks and seats herself in a nonthreatening pose across from him. “Talk to me, Barnes. What’s up with you?”

“Seventy years of being a brainwashed Soviet assassin. What’s up with you?”

“Much of the same.” She stirs at her coffee, even though she always drinks it black. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

He shifts awkwardly and leans forward with his hands clasped between his knees. “The team once told me about something you said when we had Loki in jail. You said you had a lot of red in your ledger, and you wanted to change it.”

“Yep.” It’s a little harder for her to smile this time. 

“By doing the right thing.”

“Yeah.”

“So, how’d you do it?”

“How’d I do the right thing?”

“Yeah. Well, no. How did you…you know. The guilt and all. How do you beat it?”

Her expression is unreadable as she lays back across the couch, displaying a very relaxed manner. Probably only Bucky would be able to tell it was fake. Namely because he, as the Soldier, taught it to her. “It’s pretty much creating a one-eighty in your life. You stop doing the bad things, you start doing the good things, you do everything you can to add more goodness into the world.” 

“Sounds exhausting.”

She gives a tired chuckle. “Yeah, it can be.”

“So…that’s it? I just go out and start doing good things?”

“That’s where you start.” She gives a cryptic smile that Bucky doesn’t quite understand. 

“And then what after that?”

“You can get to that later. Sit down and do some soul-searching first. Then decide on what exactly you want to do, and after that come back and talk to me again.”

“Why don’t you tell me now and save us both the social exhaustion of a second visit?”

Nat grins; Bucky’s got her there. “It’ll be some questions you need to ask yourself. I’ll write them down and send them to you.”

“Okay.” He stands up from the couch and stretches. “Well, thanks for having me.”

She snaps upright. “Sit back down, Barnes.”

He sits.

She strides around the coffee table and grabs his hair, forcing him to make eye contact. “You do not have to redeem yourself, not in my eyes or Steve’s eyes or in the eyes of anyone that matters.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t.” Her eyes radiate authority. “Your head knows it, sure. But if you truly knew, you wouldn’t be doing this. You wouldn’t be trying to redeem yourself.”

He squeezes farther back into the cushions.

She releases his hair and presses down on his scalp, soothing the hair she just pulled. “Why are you doing this to yourself?” she asks in a voice that doesn’t expect an answer.

“It’s not for anyone else.” Bucky’s gonna answer whether Nat expects it or not. “It’s not for you or Steve and it’s not for the rich guys funding the news outlets and it’s not for the people who slander me across every social media platform. This is for me. My own choice. James Buchanan Barnes needs to redeem himself in his own eyes.”

Natasha’s eyes fall shut, and for a moment Bucky wonders if she’s going to cry. He would hate himself for distressing her that much. 

Then her eyes open back up and she meets him with the harshest look he’s ever seen on anyone.

“Fine then. Do as you please. Do what seems right in your eyes. But don’t forget what I’ve told you; don’t you dare forget. You don’t need to do this, no matter how much you think you do.”

“You’re wrong.”

“No I’m not.” Her hand grabs his hair even harder than before and her voice drops low as her whole demeanor changes. “Look, I get it. I know what it feels like to have that ledger just flowing and dripping with red. I know what guilt is. I know what you’ve been through. I knew you when you were him, and I know you now, and I’m standing here as Natasha Romanoff telling you I’ve been through everything you’re about to put yourself through and you don’t need to do it.”

She lets go and sits back down on her couch. 

“Now, you can insult Tony Stark by saying the PR department he’s put in place to defend your name isn’t good enough for you. You can ignore the nights Rhodey and Scott stayed up with you through your nightmares. You can disregard the work Doctor Banner has put into designing your new arm.” She leans forward, her volume and her intensity rising steadily as she carries on. “You can wave off the baking Sam has done for you and all the little gifts Clint’s bought. You can dismiss everything Wanda’s tried to do to help ease your nightmares and put your brain back together a little more. You can discount everything everyone on the team has done for you and every way we’ve shown we care. Honestly, you can even forget everything I’ve told you already; it doesn’t really matter right now. But of everything you could choose to do, don’t you _dare_ look Steven in the eyes and tell him that his view of you doesn’t matter.”

Total silence reigns.

Bucky swallows audibly. “Yes ma’am.”

Nat lies back on the couch now, considerably calmer and much less tense. “All right Barnes, enough for today. Get out of my apartment,” she teases.

He tosses her a left-handed salute, the team signal for sarcastic teasing. “Fine, I’ll leave. I’ll go. I know when I’m not wanted.”

“Out, Barnes.”

“You don’t care about me, do you? I’m no more than another pretty face.” He plumps out his lower lip absurdly far and pulls his mouth into a tiny little duck-lipped pout.

“Out, Barnes, before I evict you.”

“Fine! I get half of everything.”

“This isn’t a divorce court and I don’t have time for due process of law.” She swats at his calf. “Shove off.”

“All right. Bye Nat! Send me those questions you have.”

She groans, but seriously this time. “Are you still on about that?”

“The whole redemption character arc? Yes.”

“Screw you, Barnes,” she mumbles halfheartedly, taking a drink of coffee. “Go on, get out.”

“Fine. Love you too!” he calls, sailing out the door.

~~~

“Sir?” JARVIS asks politely.

“I told you, my name is Bucky.” The correction is automatic at this point. Everybody calls him sir, and he hates it. Granted, though, people would tend to treat one of the most dangerous men in the world with respect. 

“My apologies. Bucky, Ms. Romanoff has sent you a list. Would you like to view it?”

“Yes, please.”

The tiny projector flicks to life on the blank portion of his wall. There, on the wall, is the list of the important questions written out in Nat’s elegant script.   
At the bottom of it all is a set of instructions from her. 

 

_Look yourself in the eyes in a mirror and try to answer these questions. If the answer isn’t right, you’ll know. Don’t think about this too much. You’ll figure it out when you get there._  
Nat  
P.S.: I know you were raised Catholic. Whatever penance you feel like you need to do is fine. But you’re not going to spend the rest of your life wading through guilt, and I will kick you if you do. 

 

“Thank you, JARVIS.” That’s the predetermined command to have the system turn off all current applications and leave the user alone. Saying “thanks” conveys standard gratitude; “thank you” is the cutoff signal.

Bucky’s always had a good photographic memory, honed by years as a sniper. He can read the questions on the wall even though they’re not there anymore. But there’s always the risk of getting caught by HYDRA again, or of a hole tearing in his memory. He rummages through his nightstand drawer and pulls out a legal pad with banged-up corners and a dull pencil. It’ll do. 

The first question is ignored. He’s had so many names. He’s calling himself Bucky now, because it’s the name Steve gave him and he likes it; but whenever he starts really thinking about his name he falls down into the name-rank-serial-number pattern he screamed on Zola’s table and that is not a good thing to think about. 

Okay then; moving on. Second question. _Who are you?_

He thinks for a moment, then writes the question down on the paper and answers it.

_HYDRA’s asset. But I’m trying to change that._

All right then, question three. _Where do you exist on the good-to-evil spectrum?_

He tries to come up with a spectrum. Obviously he’s on the bad side. What even goes on the good side, though? The top two steps have to be _Angelic_ and _Steve Rogers_ , obviously. Then stuff like _The Avengers_ and…well, actually, never mind. He’ll come back to that later.

If _Angelic_ is the top step on the scale, then _Demonic_ is probably on the other end. But those two both exist outside the human range of good and evil. _Steve Rogers_ was the second step, at the pinnacle of mortal goodness.

_The Winter Soldier_ would probably be a fitting and ironic counterpoint to that second step, existing on the opposite end of that scale. But it doesn’t fit quite like that, because he already knows that the people who made the Asset do those things were worse than the Asset himself. HYDRA has to be the endpoint of mortal badness. They were truly evil.

Bucky decides that he is one step above HYDRA. Only one, because he still did all that bad stuff, but still a step above. Not purely evil. Not all evil. But still…wicked. 

He writes it out in shorthand on a little scale, placing a bracket over the middle and scribbling a note to “figure this crap out later.” He knows where he fits on it, so the question is answered. 

On to question four: _What do you want to change?_

_I want to stop being evil and settle up the debts I owe._

On to question five: _Why are you doing all these good things?_

_Because I’m wicked, and I want to fix it._

Question six: _What are you paying for?_

That’s another list entirely. Tattered scraps of memory flit through his mind, most of them containing copious amounts of blood. Yeah, no, not today. That list can wait a while to be made.

Last question: _Have you paid enough?_

_No,_ he scribbles down, _I have not paid enough. And I will never pay enough. But I will devote every part of myself to paying as much as I can._


	2. Money Don't Grow On Trees

“I want to get a job.” 

Steve and Nat blink owlishly as Bucky strides through the kitchen door. It seems their peaceful breakfast in the Avengers kitchen is over.

It takes a moment, but they turn over onto the new topic. “Okay. What type of job are you thinking, Buck?”

“Something at-home. Peaceful. Boring. JARVIS suggested data entry of some sort?”

Nat and Steve look at each other, shrug, and nod. “That sounds like a pretty decent fit.”

Steve looks up, a little confused. “Is there any reason in particular you want a job?”

“I want to have more money. So that I can—you know. Give back.”

Steve’s brow wrinkles uncertainly. “Is SHIELD stiffing you on your salary?”

“No. I just want to be able to give more. And keep myself busy with the job.”

“Makes sense.”

Bucky sits down in a chair and nurses his coffee. “I want to give back to the community however I can. I spent so long taking from it that—you know.”

Nat nods sympathetically. Steve looks nervous and a little worried.

“But you know how people see me. I’m either a reformed Avengers fighter or I’m the literal scum of the earth. They don’t want to see me in person or interact with me if they can help it, and to be honest I don’t want to see them either. But if I get a job, then I can still be giving from both my time and my money.”

Steve smiles sadly. “That’s a pretty noble thought, there. But—but you know you don’t have to pay anything back, right? That wasn’t you and it’s not your fault.”

“Steve?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

Steve falls silent.

“I just want to give back and start being a decent member of society. I haven’t had a job since 1945, when I froze my—” he catches Steve’s disapproving look. “Um, assets. Yeah. My assets were frozen, when I died, so I have a little bit of money left from them, but...yeah, not much.”

“Did you almost swear in front of Steve Rogers?” Nat asks, looking humorously aghast.

“No. Shut up.”

Nat giggles into her coffee.

“Anyway, I just want a job. I just want to be a normal citizen contributing to society. Is that too much to ask?”

“No!” they both reassure immediately. 

“Of course not,” Nat adds. “You know we love you and we care about you. If this is something you want, we’ll give it to you.”

Steve still looks upset, but he nods. He’ll talk to Bucky about this whole redemption nonsense later.

“All right,” says Bucky, moving to clean up the dirty dishes. “Let’s go find that job.”


	3. I Got Bills to Pay

Bucky never finished answering question six on Nat’s list. Question one is okay to leave unfinished because he’s still figuring out who he is. Question three, the good-to-evil spectrum one, is okay to leave as-is because even if the middle of the scale isn’t filled in, he knows where he stands.

But question six is still unanswered. _What are you paying for?_

He’ll make a list, he decides. Every life he took, then all the property he’s damaged, to the farthest extent that he knows.

Bucky has a good photographic memory; he always has. And he remembers looking through his case file the first time he stole a copy of it from the SHIELD archives. He doesn’t remember the knives or guns and the blood. Doesn’t remember any of those deaths he caused. But he does remember a million sheets of paper, and name after name after name at the tops of the pages.

And the photos.

He remembers the photos.

Somehow he ends up on the floor, though he doesn’t know how. He realizes that JARVIS is talking to him, and he’s answering back: that same awful loop of name, rank, and serial number. Detached from reality, his consciousness tumbles end over end. Panic attack, he thinks vaguely, and his mouth shapes the words silently before everything fades into screaming grey.

~~~

The ultra-reinforced steel door is no match for a supersoldier and a secret agent. Steve and Nat bust it down and charge into Bucky’s apartments, Sam right behind them.

Bucky’s crumpled on the floor in his bedroom, eyes open and limbs awkwardly entangled. He doesn’t reply to Steve shouting his name.

Sam flashes his phone’s flashlight into Bucky’s eyes. “He’s unresponsive.”

Steve picks up the list of Bucky’s answers from the floor, eyes scanning over the beginnings of the debt list. 

“JARVIS,” Nat demands, “what happened?”

“Bucky has had a form of trauma-related cognitive glitch. He appears to have begun compiling a list of the Winter Soldier’s victims and—”

“He had a panic attack?”

“Not precisely. This anomaly was specifically related to brainwashing trauma, so there is no medical word and no previous case studies. But its manifestation was similar to a panic attack. He was in this position and responsive for about fifteen minutes, and recently became unresponsive.”

“How recently?” Sam demands.

“Eighty-two seconds ago.”

“When did you call us?”

“Eighty point five seconds ago.” 

“Ok, good.”

Steve lifts Bucky up onto the bed and orders Sam to get him some water. He pushes a bunch of Bucky’s stuffed animals and soft pillows around Bucky, talking softly as he goes. 

“Don’t stop doing that,” Nat instructs as she flops on the bed next to Bucky. “Familiar voices can offer a path out of brain trauma.”

“Really?”

“It worked when Clint was brainwashed.”

“Fair point.” He clears his throat and turns back to Bucky. “Hey, I saw your list of—uh, whatever that was—and—yeah. I don’t know what you were thinking. You know that wasn’t you, right? I’ve told you enough times; you oughta have it in your head by now. HYDRA did all that. HYDRA used the Winter Soldier to do that, and that you’re not the Winter Soldier. Ah, Bucky. What am I going to do with you? I don’t think you can even know how bad I feel about what they did to you. And I feel worse every time you start beating yourself up about it. C’mon, Buck, come back. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t your fault.”

Bucky’s arm rises and his metal hand shoves over Steve’s face. “Shut _up_ , Steve.”

Sam stands in the doorway with the water, and he’d probably be snickering if the circumstances were different. “You keep quiet too, Barnes. Can you sit up and drink this?”

They work together to get Bucky seated upright and propped up on pillows. Once he’s taken in water and has some oxygen back, he starts to say something—

“No.” Nat cuts him off. “Do you have anything necessary to say?”

“Yes. You…this is not your fault either.”

“Yep. Anything else?”

“Nope.”

“Good. Now shush.”

Bucky salutes her with a limp hand and curls into a fetal position on the pillows.

Steve cocks a brow at Nat. “What was that about?”

“Nothing.”

“Ok.”

They know their established procedure for Bucky or any of them having psychiatric episodes: cuddle fests. Cocooning the damaged person in human warmth and lots of fluffy bedding. Sam and Nat jump on the bed immediately and they toss around the pillows and settle in.

The four of them lie down together, forget about the world, and rest.


	4. I Got Mouths to Feed

Bucky wakes up with three other bodies in bed with him. It startles him for just a moment, but then the previous night’s panic attack comes back to him, and he groans.

The bedside clock reads 3:54, almost too early to get up; but he also knows it’s too late for him to go back to sleep. Ugh. He ends up in his apartment’s kitchen at about 4: 15, searching around for food as his mind whirls. 

Steve follows his nose into the communal kitchen at 7:15 in the morning, stumbling out in the wrinkly shirt and jeans he fell asleep still wearing. 

"Good morning, Buc--"

He stops. He's seen Bucky in a lot of conditions, but never one quite like this.

Bucky is wearing Tony's "Kiss the Cook" apron, is dusted in flour from head to toe, and is _surrounded_ by baked goods.

"Good morning," Bucky chirps cheerfully. "Have a muffin?"

Steve surveys the counters, all nearly covered in trays and platters of biscuits, muffins, and even breakfast pastries.

He wants to put his hand on Bucky's shoulder, but settles at the last moment for leaning back against the countertop instead. "Buck?"

Something in Steve's voice must make him stop. Bucky sets down the pan of batter he's mixing, but doesn't look up. "Yes?"

Steve decides he'll risk it and sets a hand on Bucky's scarred metal shoulder. "What's going on?"

Bucky sighs and drops his head. "I'm stress-baking."

Those two words don't go together, but Steve doesn’t laugh. He ponders the statement for a moment. "Well, there are a lot worse things you could be doing."

"Yeah." Bucky sighs and leans over to check on a pan in the oven.

Steve schools his posture into the most nonthreatening stance he knows. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

" _Should_ you talk about it?"

Bucky sighs and finally turns toward Steve. "Yeah."

Steve knows not to prompt any discussion. Let Bucky articulate his own words in his own timing.

“I guess I’m just scared,” Bucky says. He wipes his hands on his apron, then on a towel, and tosses the towel toward the sink. “You talked to JARVIS, right?”

“About what?”

“About the panic attack I had last night.”

“Sorta. He said it wasn’t a true panic attack, because it, uh, your brain processed things differently than how a standard panic attack goes; but yeah, that’s pretty close to what happened.”

“Wow,” Bucky groans, “my head’s so messed up I can’t even have a _panic attack_ right.”

Steve’s eyebrows frown. “Buck—”

“Yeah, I know. I was makin’ a joke.”

“Okay.” Steve shifts uncomfortably.

“But anyway,” Bucky says, pulling another set of muffins out of the oven, “what happened was I tried to inventory what the Winter Soldier did. And I was trying to reconcile all the parts of me, and I guess I started thinking too hard. I got stuck thinking about my name, and then my brain—it glitched out on the name-rank-serial number loop, like it _always_ does, and—yeah. You know what happened after that.”

“I see.”

Bucky putters around with stuff, checking the temperature of food on the cooling rack, washing his hands, adjusting the oven temperature, and giving the remaining batter an agitated stir before he finally cracks. “I don’t know how I can do this,” he chokes, leaning heavily on the countertop and fisting his hands in his hair.

Steve is with him in an instant, holding him close, rubbing his back, and detangling hair strands from the left hand’s metal plates. “Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay; I’ve got you.”

“How am I supposed to redeem myself,” he cries softly, “when I can’t even handle my own _name_?”

Steve rubs at Bucky’s tense shoulders just the way he likes. “You don’t have to do this to yourself, Buck. We believe you. We care about you. You’ve got nothin’ to prove.”

Bucky wrenches away angrily, like Steve’s touch burns. “Yes I _do_!”

There isn’t anything more to say. If Steve doesn’t understand what’s going on in his head, then maybe no one ever will.

Steve doesn’t have any reply that won’t make everything worse. He stays silent.

Bucky sighs and drops his forehead to rest on Steve’s shoulder. “You don’t understand it. I’m not sure if I do either. But just understand that this is something that I need to do.”

“Okay, Buck.” Steve puts an arm around Bucky’s shoulders and ruffles his hair like they always used to do to each other. “As long as you’re not causing yourself any harm, I’ll leave you to it.”

Bucky tries not to let Steve feel how his shoulders sag in relief. “Thanks.”

They draw each other into a forgiving hug. It’s how all their fights invariably end; they just can’t stay mad. 

Over Steve’s shoulder, Bucky spies the countertops laden with bakery items.

He groans. “What on earth am I supposed to do with all these muffins?”


	5. There Ain't Nothin' in this World for Free

After exiting the fourth and final local homeless shelter that took his donations of baked goods, Bucky heads off down the street, metal hand gloved and put away in his jacket pocket, hair tucked up in a beanie to make him less recognizable. He’s really craving a burger right now. Of course there’s food back at the Tower, but really, why bother going all the way back there and making something for himself when he could just hop into a fast-food place and get a preservative-filled grease bomb? Super metabolism is a huge blessing. 

Someone’s sitting on the sidewalk up in front of him with an open paper bag and a little cardboard sign. Everyone’s stepping around her and nobody will look down for fear of making eye contact.

Bucky’s ire rises. 

He sits down on the sidewalk next to her, trying to keep his posture nonthreatening and stay far enough away that she can leave if she wants. 

“Hi there,” he says quietly.

She’s shrinking away, gathering her blanket more tightly around her and looking around like she’s not sure if she should run.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he says evenly, keeping calm and removing his warm gloves. She doesn’t have any, and her hands are chapped. “Here, take ‘em; they’re warm.”

Uncertainly, an arm darts out of the blanket and picks up the gloves. “Thank you, sir.”

“It’s fine.” He shifts slightly, butt objecting to the cold concrete. “What can I best do to help you?”

She looks uncertain. “Well, I—what do you mean?”

“I mean that I’ve been blessed with extra, and I want to pass it on. My name’s James Barnes, by the way. I’m—”

Her eyes open wide. “You’re the….” She breaks off coughing. “Are you really?”

He glances around furtively, then pulls off the beanie and lets down his hair for a moment. 

Her eyes get even wider. “Holy cow. You really are him!”

He gathers his hair back up in the ponytail band and yanks the beanie back on as fast as he can. “Yep, that’s me.”

“Holy cow.”

He smiles. “So, what do you most need right now? Is it money, food, housing, a job—whatever you need; I’m willing to help however I can.”

She looks shocked and amazed. “You’d really do that?”

“Yeah.”

“For real?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes brighten even more. “Holy cow. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He shifts again on the cold concrete sidewalk. “Man, it’s freezing.” He deliberately cuts off that train of thought—of the truest, bitterest cold; of hypothermia’s whispering touches; of snow stained crimson—in favor of existing in the present. Can’t go having another sorta-like-a-panic-attack. “Now sit back and tell me what you want. Don’t censor the thoughts, don’t think anything’s impossible, and don’t assume it’s too much to ask. I’m not God, but I can do a lot, and I promise I’ll do my best on whatever it is.”

“Okay.” She laughs a little in delight. “Okay. Rent is what I need the most. Our rates just went up again. It’s barely even worth it anymore, but where else are we going to find a place in this town?”

“Do you need a new place to stay?”

“No, not really. I’m really close to work as it is now. Someday, I’d like a better place, but it’s not a priority.”

“Okay. What’s the second thing you need?”

She looks upward. “Groceries. My kids—two of them are really allergic to gluten, so I have to shop at these crazy places to try to get stuff that’s really gluten free. And it’s really expensive too—you know you don’t have to do this, right?”

He doesn’t answer that one out loud. “Is it okay with you if I do?”

She breathes in really deeply and it looks like she’s going to cry. “Yes. Yes. Thank you.”

“How many children do you have?”

“I’m taking care of four. Two of them are my husband’s, but he’s locked up right now and his ex-wife is a crazy lady, so…here I am.”

“Wow, that’s hard.” He squeezes her hand. “Are rent and groceries the main things you need?”

She sniffs. “Yeah.”

“And a coat,” he adds. “Do your kids need coats?”

“No; they’re taken care of.”

“Ok. Then let’s get to it. Where do you suggest we go shopping?”

“Carmens’ Market is only a few blocks away, and it’s good for the gluten free stuff.”

“Sounds great.”

Bucky flags down a cab, and he spends the next hour and a half following Saana through several small markets as she gathers food for her family. In the end, they emerge with an overflowing cart, besides armfuls of clothing and around twenty bags hung on Bucky’s metal arm. 

Bucky hails a taxi again, stuffs the bags into the car, and pays the taxi to take her home. She cries in gratitude and hugs him goodbye very tightly.

She doesn’t notice the hundred-dollar bills he slips into her purse as she leaves.


End file.
